The Silver Spring Penguin

Montgomery County is tossing the Birchmere nightclub a $4 million bone to open a downtown Silver Spring venue. However, some planning board members want economic incentives for small businesses as well.

Current zoning law offers economic incentives to attract entertainment venues like the Birchmere. However, those incentives do not extend to other leisure activities like shopping or dining, planning board chairman Royce Hanson said.

“What we’re looking for are provisions in the [zoning law] that would make for a more lively business district, whether it is commercial entertainment, nonprofit entertainment or street-level retail,” Hanson said at Thursday’s planning board meeting.

Hanson emphasized incentives to attract locally owned businesses, as opposed to franchises. Supporting mom-and-pop shops discourages conformity, he said.

Extending incentives to local restaurants also would allow them to compete with venues like the Birchmere, board member Allison Bryant suggested. According to the Birchmere’s website, the club does offer food and liquor in addition to entertainment.

“We need to be prepared to extend those same courtesies to other businesses,” Bryant said.

Gary Stith, director of the county’s regional center, cautioned against applying incentives to a broad swath of development projects.

“Sometimes, we create incentives that don’t really incentivize,” Stith told the planning board. “We need to look at [which] incentive works.”

A project’s usefulness to the community also should be considered before offering incentives, board member Wendy Perdue suggested. “We provide economic incentives for all kinds of private operations … to profitably relocate here,” Perdue said.

The $4 million incentive to the Birchmere, Perdue added, “is not a shocking development.”